


Do Not Touch

by ierackus



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Banter, Canon-Typical Violence, Crack, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Out of Character, Secret Identity, Snark, slowish burn, some dom/sub elements, something that looks like a plot, touch-starvation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-07-12 06:47:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7090174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ierackus/pseuds/ierackus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sensing Rey is too obsessed with hunting down Kylo Ren, her friends are desperate to find an outlet for her surmounting rage. And she’s becoming a liability to Luke’s remaining limbs. With polite insistence sounding an awful lot like a threat, Rey is pushed into bounty hunting. It’s not like Kylo could show up and completely ruin everything, right? Not if Rey's ingenuity and knack for cruel and unusual punishment can help it.</p><p>Alternatively: A Scavenger’s Guide to Surviving the Naboo Countryside With a Whiny Little Wannabe Sith.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do Not Touch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despite destroying the First Order, Rey's gained a bit of an anger issue affectionately known as Kylo Ren. Can her friends at the Resistance help her out without getting their heads bitten off? No. The answer is no.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I have no idea what I'm doing. Seriously. This is my first time sharing work with others online (yay being shy), and luck would have the lovely Reylo community to be my inspiration to post. I apologize in advance for the technical flaws, but I'm happy to finally share a laugh or the feels with all of you fine readers.
> 
> This is mostly a crack piece, but I will try to have an overarching plot and occasional seriousness to ground it. We'll see how that goes. Without further ado, let the madness commence!

On the subject of lost limbs, I asked Master Luke once if his old wounds hurt. He shook his head, but babbled on about handling the mundane bits of life. No amount of mechanics convey the proper texture of a fighter ship’s control panel. Sensory programs cannot substitute holding a warm cup of morning caf. No pass of the Force brings the same elation of holding onto one you trust.

  
This makes my guilt worse knowing I’ve yet again limited his collection of natural appendages.

  
“Any doubt towards you being a Kenobi has been removed by your persistence in leaving Skywalkers with fewer limbs.” Leia pinches the bridge of her nose and tries to channel a calming breath.

  
“It was just some toes this time. Nothing to fuss over!” Master Luke wriggles his new set of mechanical toes in his sister’s face for emphasis. He giggles at her grimace before tucking his boot back on. “I was pinned and Rey was…inventive in her rescuing. But if you prefer me smashed on a volcano by rubble and debris, not before you presently with fewer digits, please let me know before I invest more into your birthday gift.”

  
“Since when did Dagobah get a volcano?”

  
Luke and I tense as the general parades past. Without inflection, she adds, “My contacts on Shu-Torun verified an ornery old man, a wookie, and a reckless young lady running amuck in a junk freighter. Are you certain it was a volcano and not your new tradition of leaving a burning mess and chaos wherever you two go?” With the sly raise of the her brow, Luke cringes. My glare fills in for any scrutiny Leia was not already covering.

 

“It was Rey’s idea?”

 

“Your loyalties are an inspiration, Master,” I coo. For good measure, I pat his damaged knee. Hard.

 

“Next time, increase what you pay Chewie. At least I have one honest ally left.”

  
“That was the last of my credits!” I hope this high pitched whine of mine is forever scorched in the old man’s conscious.

  
“It’s not my fault you spent them all on snacks and morally gray Wookies!”

  
Leia interrupts our quarrel quick enough.

  
“You were hunting Ben, weren’t you?”

  
We’re less than inclined to answer. Leia extends her hand to my shoulder where a bacta patch was slapped on. She sighs--the worst of her punishments. Her haggard exhale possesses the pity and judgment of a thousand mothers. I assume. The closest thing I have to a mother is Luke’s criticisms of my dating life. Leia surrenders my arm with a gentle squeeze.

  
“Force knows I want my son back…but I wonder if it should be at the risk of losing you.”

  
“Oh, if you think this is bad, you should see what I did to him,” escapes me with more pride than intended. “I finally cut a full ‘resh’ on his face!”

  
I’m used to Leia’s gawking, but receiving Luke’s dropped jaw suggests I went too far. I wedge my fingers under my seat, attempting to keep still and shut up.

  
“Not again.” Leia doesn’t remain to finish our debrief. With the resolve only she can muster, she marches as far away from us Force-freaks as possible.

  
“Personally, I thought the monogram suited him. But in interest of self-preservation, I’m siding with Leia on this.” Luke scoots his chair over to his sister’s desk and props his recovering foot atop important looking documents. “I’ve seen it from the start, and she’s seeing it, too. You’re getting more like him every day.”

  
“Force bond.” I point at my temple with no spared sass. “I bet Kylo’s got a hankering need to fix droids and hoard food, but that hasn’t brought him back to the Light.”

  
“Not that way. Take the Force out of it for a bit. No cosmic destiny, no domineering old nerfherders bossing you around, just you and him and this family. We’ve spent more time loving the ghost of him than we did when we still had him. Faced with the smallest chances of feeling complete again, we can't watch you slip away to the same darkness. I had a lot of time to think it all over and…and,” he chokes on those words with a cry he tries to turn into a pitiful laugh. “It makes me wonder how much of it was the call to darkness, and how much of it was our failures to love as a family should.”

  
It’s a sand battered exterior surrounding what compassion Jakku and this war did not pry from me. I crack at my chest and the fracture chases up to my cheek. I stop myself from wiping an escaped tear because Luke should see. He needs to know light exists in me. Light he's cultivated in me. I roll my chair over to his side and wrap my arms at his shoulders. Luke rests his head against me and breaths out the doubt clutching him.

  
“Watch the cut,” I warn to ward off too much sentimentality.

  
“My apologies, my capacity to care about your pain was contained in my toes.”

  
We’re back to our usual laughter. He’s a weird sort of Jedi Master. Never once as strict or foreboding as my mind wanted him to be. I still wonder what amount is his kind nature versus atonement.

  
“Someday you’re going to have to stop blaming yourself for the choices Kylo made.”

  
“Perhaps. It’s the damnable thing with love. You drive yourself to the same level of madness all because you love someone.“

  
I want to answer him with a sarcastic retort blaming my love for this strange little family every time I walk that gray line.

  
Instead, I am silent for the distant echo in my mind. Mental walls I was instructed to build keep Kylo’s prying presence out, but now they shake. Darkness falls like dust from the mortar and dissipates just as quickly. He is constant in his attempts to burst through, rattling my fortified mind with a barrage of attacks.

  
The smallest of holes exists in this barrier between our bond. It takes shape as an unbroken window neither of us claimed to make. I dare not peer through. Once was enough to keep my distance from Kylo’s memories. I leave this window for him.

  
I want Kylo to see this life I lead. I want him to see this weak scavenger living the life he should have chosen. He sees me now. He must feel Luke’s hand on me. His usual thunderous chaos ceases. In its place a faint cry. But from which side of the wall, I don’t expect to ever know.

 

 

 

What really pisses me off is how little everyone appreciates music. Excuse me for singing at the top of my lungs at socially inappropriate times, but the whole lifetime of isolation assigns music its true worth. Any being can understand the depths of the galaxy as the right music meets them.

  
Unfortunately for my fellow shop mates, the right music was a Twilek Folk infusion with Coruscant Underground Club beats. I don’t care they rev engines over my squealing attempt to hold a tune. I’m too far into a percussion solo of gas tanks and by-standing droids to notice. I only stop drumming when someone bursts into laughter.

  
It’s a low rumble, at first stifled with embarrassment but breaks containment with elated enthusiasm. I almost miss the tinge of sadness as the noise of the hanger swallows the laugh away. I twist my head about, hoping to find the source. It seems my cohorts have taken to hiding on the opposite ends of the garage to escape. They give nervous, fake smiles all ignorant to the fleeting happiness I heard. Only I heard.

  
I can’t linger long on the thought as a hand swipes down on the droid forced into playing my horrible music.

  
“Maker, Rey, I have a cousin who listens to this bantha fodder, but I forgive her because she’s eight,” Poe moans while rubbing his ears. At his feet, BB-8 hides away with low beeps carrying a threat unbecoming of BB’s presumed docile nature. Finn has yet to join, barely making it past the row of repaired blasters benches over.

  
“Are you busy? We’re taking lunch after we get our assignments. If we don’t have one more meal with you, Finn will be a blubbering mess and utterly useless to me as a gunner and will get us both killed. BB would obviously go to you, but I’m currently concerned he’ll be subjected to playing your horrible music. I need to do what’s best for BB. I’m sure you understand.”

  
“Yes, most certainly.”

  
BB-8 rolls his head as one rolls eyes and leaves for the door. Finn trips over the bot before joining our group.

  
“What’s BB on about?”

  
“Just coming to terms with us unquestionably dying on our mission.”

  
Finn’s smiles are the best. They consume his whole face and bring his eyes into a happy little squint. But nothing amuses me more than when the words reach past the grin. His face switches to shock even quicker.

  
“Wait, why are we dying? Did you hear something about the mission? Is there an assassination plot? Did they hear of one? I bet there is one. We killed Snoke and you know some of those First Order whack-jobs are going to want to get us. We should get aliases.”

  
“We’re fine, I promise.”

  
“Plus no one will touch you with me by your side,” I offer as reassurance. It has an opposite reaction.

  
“Right...about you joining our missions...you talk to the General at all?” Finn cringes while hoping Poe might add more.

  
“Yes, only yesterday. It’s amazing how upset she can get over a few toes!” Their sympathetic frowns register a small bit of doubt. “What did she say?”

  
“Nothing,” Poe answers sharply though Finn fights the need to say more. He’s met with Poe’s heel on his boot before he can add on. “We’re summoned to talk to her and the council.”

  
Poe glares at Finn, clear enough to me as pleading to stay quiet and agree. Finn is slower to follow but tries.

  
“Yes? Yes...we should all go talk to Leia and it won’t possibly be about anything Rey may not be happy with.”

  
“Close enough,” Poe sighs and signals us to follow.

  
I’m not about to sit through another boring meeting, so I grab a soldering project from my bench before departing. Finn eyes the kit and the contraption stuffed into my overflowing arms with wonder.

  
“What are you making today? Need me to carry anything?”

  
I shove the majority of the mess across his outstretched arms.

  
“Yes, thank you! I’m close to finishing my Force restraint system. If I can patch up the resistor, it might help with the random surges of electricity that strike out for no reason whatsoever.”  
Finn’s face blanches, but he continues carrying the contraption.

  
“That sounds...interesting?”

  
“It will be when I finish this prototype. I will not only be able to suppress Force abilities, but it will set up an electric perimeter between captive and captor. It will revolutionize how we capture enemies in the field.”

  
“Calling it for what it is, this sounds like a giant shock collar made to satisfy a personal vendetta.”

  
I don’t answer because Poe isn’t exactly wrong.

  
“You’re not really making shock collars are you? And why would you want to suppress Force abilities?” Finn loses his point as he’s inspecting the neck brace. It’s a conductive alloy created for ysalamiri mimicry amplified by flexible cone spanning the full collar. “How do you know it will work?”

  
“Luke’s been helping me refine the design. He let me 'besh' test him. The Force retardants were excellent.”

  
“If only those pesky electric currents agreed with his machine prosthetic. Ever seen a fake arm get blown across a room, Finn? Really only worth seeing once.”

  
Finn makes sure I’m carrying my instrument the rest of the way to the meeting.

 

 

I stopped listening a good half hour ago. Something important about preventing the utter collapse of the Republic before we spiral into mass annihilation, suppressing insurgents, and a small mention of the salad bar getting an upgrade. My attention threatens to return with the last news. I huddle into my corner with my Force restraints on my knees. No one has noticed me yet besides Luke’s occasional flinches when the wires spark.

  
“Poe and Finn, I’ll anticipate daily reports back on your efforts. And I insist you keep a rational mind—though I have my doubts you will prioritize your own lives over the innocents. Should the surviving enemies be too overwhelming, you must leave,” Leia instructs, a maternal plea lacing her words.

  
“Yes, General. Obey safety procedures or infer your guilt trip,” Poe snaps back with a grin. She pinches her lips together to hide the smile.

  
“Or infer my court martial. You two go be heroes, but within constraints of what I can justify to the higher-ups.”

  
“Wait,” I stammer and toss the pile of metal and wires aside. “Am I not going with them? I thought since I finished my mission with Luke that I’d be back to recon.”

  
“I’m not obliged to send three of my best soldiers out together on all occasions because you want to gossip together,” Leia tries to deadpan. “Chewbacca is recovering Relics from a suspected Sith temple in the outer reach. Your services are best served--” She stumbles when Chewy starts gesturing at his neck with quick slicing motions. He pretends to be stroking his forehead when I catch him.

  
“Traitor,” I hiss though he acts indifferent to me.

  
“I don’t think it is wise to send a Force-user still, er, determining her specific alignment into Sith territory lest she gets ideas. Besides, Chewy can handle this alone, can’t you?”

 

Chewy nods fervently, tossing in a shrug and grunt for my benefit.

  
“If Rey is still so undecided, shouldn’t you finish training her?” Leia bites back at her brother.

  
“On second thought, perhaps I should go with him. You know, we’ve not had a decent chance to properly discuss how the traumas of destroying Snoke have affected us. We are rather sensitive about such things. Maybe you should finish training Rey as you put a rather abrupt break in teaching her the finer parts of diplomacy.”

  
“I’m far too preoccupied. Commander Wexley and Captain Pava, could you--”

  
“No!” both pilots shout in unison from across the table. I forgot they were joining us. Snap Wexley has a less than amused look to his face, but perhaps it’s the scars and bionic eye earned from our last mission together?

  
“Oh stop avoiding it and tell her already!” Finn pipes up. They focus him with expectation if not resentment for bringing the topic up all together. “You’re going to make me tell her, aren’t you?”

  
A chorus of “yep” and “pretty much” answers back. Finn rolls his eyes and steps out from his seat. Holding my hand--which I have yet to actually enjoy--he smiles as penitence.

  
“Rey, you know we all adore you and we think you’re perfect and amazing and funny...but that doesn’t mean we enjoy your, um, work ethic.”

  
Without wish to control myself, I pinch a pressure point on his pinky. Finn stumbles back and whines, “See, this is what we’re talking about!”

  
“Don’t take it out on Finn, Rey,” the General jumps in. She strolls between us and pats our shoulders. “You are exceptionally skilled, in every way, Rey. Anything you want to do, you go for and succeed in ways leaving us awestruck. But with your skill, if we find ourselves on the disagreeing end, we coincidentally find ourselves in danger.”

  
“I don’t understand!” A flash of a ship leaving Jakku’s atmosphere overwhelms my mind. “Everything I’ve done has only been to help the Resistance. To help my friends!”

  
“We never doubted your loyalty. It’s only your enthusiasm, if not fixation towards certain elements of our cause worrying us.”

  
I give Leia a confused glance and try to calm the overwhelming anxiety in my mind. I’m sure to draw the curtain on that window within the bond because I’m damn sure I don’t want him hearing this.

  
“To put it bluntly, Rey, your persistent desire to kill my nephew has made you a liability.”

  
“That’s what this is about!”

  
“Well, it’s all you’re about!” Finn huffs.

  
“Kylo Ren is now the only remaining significant threat of the First Order. I see nothing wrong with putting an end to a major thorn in our side!”

  
“I’m going to ignore the fact this is my son, whom I very much want to survive so I can kill him myself, and remind you your attempts to stop him are entirely too risky for us to condone. Not to mention you stole sensitive case files from me once to intercept the Finalizer to fight him,” Leia scolds.

  
“Seemed a waste of information to not.”

  
“You crash landed my ship when you sensed his Force signature on a junk planet,” Snap interjects. “It was just his old trash!”

  
“And you stole my ship to chase after him!” Pava joins in.

  
“I returned it, didn’t I?”

  
“In two pieces!”

  
“BB-8 still won’t forgive you.”

  
I assume Poe means the time I punted BB at Kylo as a distraction, but it was entirely the droid’s idea. We’re going around the projection table at this point. I give Luke an expectant scowl.

  
“Quite honestly, it’d be nice to carry a conversation with you that doesn’t somehow involve killing my nephew. And to know I mean more to you than a test subject for your horrific shock collar.”

  
“A what!” Leia jolts her hand off me.

  
“If this is turning into a meeting to insult me, I’m going back to the hanger where I know I’m needed.”

  
“About that...your presence in the shop is being reevaluated pending an investigation your music tastes are subtly reprogramming the droids into having homicidal tendencies.” I never can tell when Poe jests, especially as this isn’t an unbelievable problem.

  
Chewy speaks up, starting an eloquent explanation how my Force bond with Kylo has brought to surface undesirable emotions of fixation unable to go dormant until I make peace with my situation or some shit like that because I wasn’t exactly listening.

 

I shout over him with, “So what am I supposed to do now? Am I kicked out of the club?”

  
“No! Never, Rey! We would never give up on you.” Leia approaches me with arms outstretched. Her thumb glides down the bridge of my nose, over my cheek, and settles at my jaw. The act itself is gentle, but I can’t ignore the rumble in the back of my mind. It’s a strong strike dragging against those walls. There’s an entirely different pair of hands pulling at me, desperate to reach me, to reach past me, and join in Leia’s hold. To see her face grow somber, can she feel him, too?

  
“We do care for you, Rey, but perhaps there’s a different outlet for your abilities? Something solitary?”

  
We turn to Luke with a file projecting from his hand.

  
“Ever thought about bounty hunting?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah! You survived and made it to the end! Thanks! I plan to update once a week, so we'll see where this hot mess ends up. Join in next time for Rey ruining everything.


End file.
